Over the years, I have run many events at various conventions
but never anything quite like the BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS
trial event tournament at the 2004 WBC. It all started on Saturday
morning, the day of the big event. I was in our Lost Battalion
Games booth, all spiffy in my new gamemaster's shirt, when I
overheard an associate telling a customer that the game would
be demonstrated at the "Café J" at noon. I mentioned
that the demonstrating was not scheduled until 1:00 p. m. but
was informed that the noon hour had been mistakenly repeated
all morning long.

What the heck, I mumbled (or maybe something less repeatable)
and, shortly before noon, headed for the "J" to inform
anyone there of the actual time. When I got there, who should
I find waiting but two old gaming buddies, Wes Coats, his cohort
Jim "Smiley" Burnett, and an empty table. We were joined
by several others and soon I was explaining the game and leading
a practice hand. At 1:00, others arrived, so I started another
demonstration. As 2:00 p. m. approached, I announced I had to
leave to run the tournament. Then, someone explained that they
thought the demo was at 2:00 and the tournament at 3:00. I checked
my listing in the handy-dandy program and discovered that I was
looking at the little colored boxes in the wrong way. Aarghh!!
Had all these nice folks just wandered into these first two demonstrations
by accident?

I raced up to "Maryland 4" and found another group
waiting in need of a demonstration, even though I should have
been down in the "Café J." I fast-talked through
my third demonstration of the day. Wonder of wonders, the tournament
finally started at 3:00 p. m. with 30 participants.

The first round, with six tables of five players each, included
13 who had taken part in my marathon demonstrations. Only the
basic game was used. I was kept busy explaining various fine
points at all the tables during what proved to be a fun first
round.

For the final round, the winners from each first round table
participated and this was a grim group of six, playing for blood.
The cards used included the Expansion Deck. Since my voice had
faded by then, it was well that there were few questions. Rob
Mull, who had learned the game at one of the demonstrations that
afternoon and despite losing 34 points when he was eliminated
in the second hand, rallied to add 33 points in the third and
final hand to win with a total of 49 points. Other finalists
were Kevin Brownwell (43), Tom Evinger (36), Tom Phillips (27),
Chris Greenfield (25) and Mark Bayliss (17).